It’s common for artists to be eccentric. They can be tough to work with, off in their own worlds or unwavering perfectionists. Rarely does an artist sit on a street corner in downtown Los Angeles with a cow and a placard to promote an actress’ performance in one of their films. But that’s who David Lynch was.
Over a decades-long career, Lynch garnered a reputation in Hollywood for his eccentricity. The movies he made toyed with the very medium of film, often focusing on the metaphysical and the subconscious. The result was critically acclaimed films lauded with praise – and confusion. Each film he made was a departure from the last, his work so deeply personal that it’s impossible for any two people to have the same experience with one of his movies.
Tragically, David Lynch passed away on Jan. 15, 2025. With the loss of this great artist, let’s take a look at his most influential work, Twin Peaks.
Despite Lynch’s career being primarily in film, he branched out with Twin Peaks, a television show that first aired in 1990 on ABC. It’s set in the titular small town of Twin Peaks, and begins when one morning Laura Palmer, the high school homecoming queen, turns up dead on the lake shore. Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), an FBI agent, is sent in to help the small town police department investigate.
To say Twin Peaks is solely a murder mystery show would be disingenuous. The investigation acts more as a driving force to deal with more abstract elements, mixing in features of soap operas with sequences of dreamlike absurdity. What starts off as a typical small-town murder plot quickly spirals to involve interdimensional beings, sentient logs, love triangles and David Bowie. Frankly, trying to explain exactly what happens in Twin Peaks is a fool’s errand, not just because the show is intentionally obtuse, but also because so much of the show relies instead on its vibes.
From its intro title sequence to the end credits, a dreamlike atmosphere envelops every scene of the show, in part due to Angelo Badalamenti’s phenomenal score. The soundtrack is defined by slow, ambient tracks that underscore the small-town sleepiness. The warm colors of light reds and oranges in every scene further enhance this comforting atmosphere.
The cozy ambiance is further built upon by the show’s wackiness. Almost every scene has some sort of absurdist craziness sprinkled into it. Random characters will dance in the background of shots. Main characters will describe something simple in an overcomplicated way. An otherwise serious scene will be broken up by a sudden dance number. I could go on forever about all the ways Twin Peaks shows its silliness. It all goes to build not only the humor of the show but also the offbeat atmosphere. Between the absurdity of what’s happening on screen and the calming atmosphere it’s wrapped up in, the whole show achieves a vibe that is profoundly unique and yet to be matched.
Despite this otherwise calming and absurd atmosphere, there’s always a lingering sense of dread in Twin Peaks. Characters who are kind and goofy in one scene will become conniving and threatening in the next. Shots of dark forests and empty roads are often contrasted with red stoplights to suggest that there’s something lurking right beneath the surface of an otherwise peaceful town. Not to mention, the only reason any of the dreamlike nature of the show is relevant is because of the devastating murder of a high school girl. There’s a constant sense that something supernatural is going on – that there’s some answer to Laura’s death lurking in the woods that we, the audience, never see.
As Twin Peaks goes on, the show’s ethereal nature becomes nightmarish. The dread, which was always secondary to the cozy atmosphere, gradually comes to the forefront as layers are peeled back to reveal trauma spanning generations. It’s a common theme throughout Lynch’s work for a veneer of innocence to cover darkness, and nowhere does he pull it off better than in Twin Peaks.
The characters of Twin Peaks reflect its atmosphere. There are your comforting yet offbeat characters, like protagonist Dale Cooper. Cooper is far from your typical lawman. He has a distinct fascination for trees and a love of black coffee combined with an attitude of positivity that makes him a joy to watch. Instead of being strictly empirical, he bases his investigation on dreams and superstitions, giving him an incredibly unique approach to the events of an investigation.
The characters of Twin Peaks are all unique like Dale Cooper. Even characters with little to no plot relevance have so much care and detail put into them, which makes the show so consistently engrossing. Almost every personality has a positive charm that makes them likable and comforting. I say “almost” because, just like with the atmosphere, the comforting characters are set off by some of the most terrifying characters ever portrayed on television. In order to avoid spoilers, there’s not much more that I can say about that kind of character, though, except that the villains are just as unique as every other aspect of the show.
Twin Peaks ends four times. The first time is when the investigation into Laura Palmer finishes around halfway through the second season. But then the show just…keeps going. The second half of Twin Peaks Season 2 is almost universally reviled, and for good reason. Lynch had stepped away from the show for this part, and his absence is felt. The plot becomes directionless, getting bogged down in Civil War reenactments and tales of running away from home. All of the vibes the show built up really just go away until the last few episodes when Lynch returns to the show and goes all in with the weirdness. The real finale of Twin Peaks is so weird and brilliant that it is both impossible to describe its content, and at the same time, it recontextualizes the entire show.
The third ending comes in the form of a feature-length movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The film is a prequel following what happens to Laura Palmer in the days leading up to her death. The show’s dark atmosphere is put on so much of a pedestal in the movie that most people consider it to be a horror movie. It is deeply disturbing, but it ends with a faint glimmer of hope and beauty that makes it one of Lynch’s best works in my opinion. The fourth ending is the show’s 2017 Showtime exclusive revival, Twin Peaks: The Return. I haven’t seen The Return, so I can’t comment on it (Showtime’s expensive!). For a show as dense as Twin Peaks, it makes sense that its ending is so complicated.
It takes something really special to be considered a magnum opus in such a prolific career. But that’s exactly what Lynch made when he took all of his artistic quirks and created one of the most influential shows of all time. Twin Peaks is so impactful that it almost single-handedly led to the era of prestige television that we are still in today. Without Twin Peaks, there is no The Sopranos, no Lost and no Mad Men. It is considered one of the best shows of all time for good reason, and the world suffered a great loss when its creator left us. But the work Lynch left behind is a powerful tale of love, trauma, America and so much more that it, like most of his other works, defies analysis. Twin Peaks has stood the test of time and still stands alone in its ability to be both beautiful and terrifying, making it one of the greatest pieces of visual media ever created.
